The Promise
by Pinguicha
Summary: The Warden always knew Morrigan would leave her, and so she devised a ploy to hunt her later. After setting Flemeth on Morrigan, the Grey Warden is left with Morrigan's daughter... and the task of telling the girl what she is.


Author's Note: This is nothing but a short drabble I wrote after watching the Dragon Age: Origins' epilogues. Morrigan was a bitch, and I loved her so - plus, her child was the only thing that left me wondering about the future of the game. I just wanted to write a little bit about her.

Enjoy!

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_The Promise_

All my life, I have never known what I truly was.

It is, I believe, thanks to my mother, who guarded it like a secret. She told me I'm different but never exactly _how_.

Up until today, it had always been her and me, alone in the wilderness, with her teaching me how to control the magic I was born with. For all her bad temper and short patience, I must admit my mother was quite a good teacher; even though our magic was so different from one another and she sometimes had trouble to figure out what to do with me, I still was able to learn to use it as though it were just another part of my body.

It had always been just the two of us, alone in the wilderness, with the occasional visits to town. Until the day an old woman named Flemeth came. It happened just a few minutes ago but even so, I cannot remember anything properly. My mother was taken aback and the next thing I know she is now kneeling on the floor, flood spurting out of her mouth. She is dying, and I'm nearly panicking as I was unable to stop it. My chants are in vain and, when I looked up, Flemeth is looming in over me, a smile drawn on her old, puckered face.

Her smile doesn't last for long, though and, by the time I realize it, another woman is standing proudly before me, eyes set on Flemeth with resolute determination. Never in my life had I beheld such a terrifyingly beautiful sight. I had but a second to gaze upon her features, surprisingly delicate for one so powerful, before she threw her arms up and chanted.

I can do nothing but hold my mother, trying to mend her wounds with what little Creation spells I know, but my efforts are fruitless. My mother is beyond healing and when I finally come to terms with it, I realized there was no more chanting or spells on the air. Only the strange woman who smells of blood and oozes comfort is left standing; and she is looking down, almost sympathetically, at Morrigan, who is shaking in my arms.

"Isleen," my mother coughs the woman's name along with blood, which spills down her chin and onto the earth. I try to force her to stillness, but she refuses to obey me. I give up when I see a speck of a smile tugging at her lips, and irony clinging on to her voice. "You always were a cunning little whore."

"And you a shrewd bitch," the woman replied. It was strange, I thought, the way they spoke to one another, for even though it was filled with hateful words, there was also a soft glint of tenderness to it.

"I thought I was more so than you. For all your smarts, you had a soft spot for each and every one of us." My mother laughed bitterly and, even in her current state, I must admit it she still managed to give it that horrible deprecating feeling of humiliation. "Never would I have thought you would lie to me about slaying Flemeth."

The woman – Isleen – shrugged nonchalantly. "In a way, I didn't. I still killed her... only a few years late." She tucks a stranded lock of black hair behind her ear before she switches her steely black eyes to me. She is small, but the weight of her stare is monumental, and it was finally then that the realization of who she was hit me like a stone. Isleen Surana, the Grey Warden who had defeated the Archdemon and avoided another Blight.

"So this is she," the Warden states.

"Surprised she doesn't look more like her father?" my mother snorts. "Frankly, I'm relieved."

Reluctantly, Isleen takes her eyes off of me, and I conclude I'd been holding my breath all the while. She squats down and caresses the side of my mother's face with a touch so gentle it surprised the three of us. "In a way, so am I," she wistfully confesses.

"You still are a lovestruck fool." Morrigan tries to shake her head, but all she manages is a shiver.

Isleen leans forward and, with her lips pressed to my mother's forehead, she mutter, "And you're still a contemptuous idiot."

With what little strength Morrigan had left, she reached out for the collar of the mage's robes, impeding Isleen from moving away. Morrigan's eyebrows are furrowed, and she is the angriest I've ever seen her. "You will care for her, Isleen and when the time comes..."

"I'll tell her," Isleen finished my mother's sentence with a determination so grim I felt my bones shivering from feeling it.

"Promise," my mother ferociously insists.

"I promise."

Morrigan smiled her demeaning smile for just a second. Then, her face relaxed and her body felt heavier. I looked at her, hoping she'd draw another breath, but she never did. Isleen tried to pry my mother's body away from me and it was finally when she did so that I understood Morrigan was dead.

I watch, silent, as she drags my mother away and, with a handful of words, sets her on fire. She stands, immobile, while the flames consume Morrigan's body – and I do the same. Morrigan was never one to grieve visibly, and that was one of the many traits I inherited from her. I feel loss, and a hint of despair, but little more. Death is inevitable, and while it hurts Morrigan is gone, there's little I can do about it.

I am helpless, and it's that feeling – and not loss – that is keeping me from getting up. The flames have died down already, and the Warden inconspicuously enters Morrigan's – _my_ – hut. She emerges a few minutes later with a packed bag which she drops in front of me.

I look up, lost. "Let's go," she says.

"What?"

"We're going." She drags me up with shocking force and drags me along with her. For some reason, I cannot set my feet down and make her stop. All I can do is follow and wonder why she was taking me away from the only place I knew – and the only place I could call home.

The night of my mother's death is a cold one and yet, the woman in front of me seems not at all troubled by the chilling wind. Her casualness makes me wonder whether or not it's the weather that's truly cold or if it's only my soul that is freezing because of what I have just seen.

I have a feeling that she knows me, this woman, while I do not know her at all. Her name is familiar and so is the gist of her story – after all, who _hadn't_ heard of Isleen Surana, the woman who had been at the head of the vanquishing of the last Blight? Beyond that, however, I know nothing.

It's unnerving, then, that knows me better than I know myself. I bite my lip, trying to suppress the childish feeling of unfairness which was creeping up on me. It fails miserably and I find myself battling an abrupt surge of bad temper – something I seem to have inherited from my mother.

"Where are you taking me?" I finally gather the will to ask her. She doesn't turn, just keeps on walking; she doesn't even deign herself to just steal a sideways glance at me as she replies, "Somewhere safe."

I find it pretty annoying. I _was_ safe. Sure, my mother isn't what one would have called the best person to be around, but with her, I had been safe. Morrigan had been a powerful witch and I quickly was becoming one myself. We had always been able to defend ourselves... up until today, at least.

In fact, the only reason I'm still following this woman around is because I know running away would be fruitless. Morrigan's magic had been strong, but this woman's... I have no way of describing it, as it is so unlike my mother's natural one. It smells of blood and at the same time, it's comforting and soothing – a combination I have never encountered or read of before.

"How did you find us?" I resume my questioning and this time she doesn't even answer me. She just keeps walking forward, with her proud chin stuck high. To her, I realize I'm nothing but an annoying fly she refuses to acknowledge; determined to put an end to it, I raise my tone. "Are you going to answer me?"

She finally stops then, and her eyes, dark and cold, are fixed on me. "I did not find you; Flemeth did."

I breathe in deeply. "That's the woman who killed Morrigan."

"Your mother had every weapon do defend herself against her. It was overconfidence that killed her." Her tone is as hard as stone and I feel weak beneath her scrutiny. Still, I am not about to back down.

"How did you know Flemeth would find us?"

She shakes her head and sighs. "I play ahead, child. Now, if you please... We have a lot of ground to cover until we reach the village."

I agree to give it a rest until we find a place to spend the night. The woman I was following... hers was the kind of tale every child dreamed of. I hadn't learned it from Morrigan, mind you – she would never indulge me in such fantasies but in my rare escapades to town, I would hear about it, and I'd always grow enthralled by how a single woman could overcome such odds.

But alas, I had been quite stupid in my youth. For instance, when I was younger, I had often wondered about whether or not my father had loved my mother. Naturally, I asked my mother this and she, in her usual taciturn manner, shrugged me off, telling me that if love had been involved in my conception, it certainly had not been the love my father had for her, but the love he bore for another woman instead.

I had been born out of deal, was how my mother ended that brief reply. I had been a tool, that much I understood, but nothing extraordinary beyond that. I did not know why my mother had made such a deal but knowing her, she must have gained something great. She was ambitious, Morrigan was, and there was no way she would have kept me if she were to gain nothing from it.

Whether she managed to reap her rewards or not, I do not know. Morrigan never told me what the purpose behind my existence was and now, there was no way she would.

Morrigan did tell me of a lot of other things to make up for it, though. She spoke of magic and taught me everything she knew about it; she told me of the Chantry and how they sought to imprison mages under their control and how we, in their eyes, were criminals; she told me of Andraste, the Prophet, and how belief could make armies.

And lastly, Morrigan had once told me of Flemeth, my grandmother and how she had manipulated the Grey Warden Isleen Surana to kill Flemeth for her and take the old hag's grimoire. What she had not expected was that the Grey Warden she had so deftly manipulated had lied to her about it. Isleen had not killed Flemeth; instead, she and the old had had reached an agreement: Isleen would take Flemeth's Grimoire back and fool Morrigan into believing Flemeth was dead. This would allow Morrigan to grow lax in her defences and, when the time was right, Flemeth would attack my mother and take her essence into herself.

What Morrigan and Flemeth never counted on was that the Grey Warden had played them both... And that Grey Warden is the only person who probably knows what it is about me that's so important it must be kept a secret.

Eventually, we reach Limnes, the nearest town. Isleen takes me to the local inn, a rustic place that smells of sweat, ale and roasted meat. After a short talk, the innkeeper guides us to a double room, and she orders him to bring all the meals upstairs after presenting him with a couple of extra sovereigns.

Then, she tells me she'll answer all my questions after she comes back and, without giving me anything else, the Warden leaves. I do not mind the strange place or the solitude for the next few days, and I wonder if I am indeed prone to grievance, unlike Morrigan was. I used my free time to practise my magic, and the innkeeper, as the Warden commanded, brought me food at regular intervals.

For three days, I was alone, and glad for it, but today, she finally comes back, and I find myself filled with curiosity. In that lithe, graceful way of her, she intrudes upon my room and pulls up a chair to sit in front of the fire. She is weaker, I note, weaker and paler and sicker than the last time I'd seen her and I assume it's the darkspawn blood coursing through her veins that's begun corroding her body heavily. For all her frailty, however, the aura of power she's always emanated has somehow grown stronger.

She beckons me to sit next to her and for the first time, I do not fight her. "Of the thirty years I had left, only nine remain," she tells me. "And during that time... Do you have any idea of how many taboos of the Grey Wardens I've violated?" she asks me.

I shake my head. "I do not know enough about you to be able to answer that question."

"I would have suspected you would have found out enough during the time you've stayed here," she says, and I detect a vague note of disappointment to her tone. She holds up her left hand, my attention immediately drawn to the elegant ring on her finger.

"That is one rule I paid no heed to. We get involved – after all, we do have needs – but marriage? It's a hindrance, _especially_ when the two of you are member of the order. We die a lot and we figure we might as well spare the grief when it happens to us.

"Still, I married. I loved too much, too hard and mostly, I loved too innocently. They say women who pledge the Grey Wardens are barren but, unthinkable as it was, I still did have two children, who are now caged and protected by the Circle of Magi, as I once was.

"Love, marriage, children... I have broken many rules in my lifetime but compared to you, witch-child, born out of my selfish desire to steal more time with the man I love, all my other transgressions are nothing. It was your mother's wish that I tell you this and it's my redemption that I grant it.

"It was my promise to your mother... So listen, child, for I will tell you the tale of how you came to be."

Upon hearing those words, I can do nothing but obey.


End file.
